Originally posted to The Middle East Monitor website, 15 July 2021
The use of torture and the death penalty have “significantly increased” in Bahrain over the past decade, since the Arab Spring uprising in 2011, a new report has revealed.
Issued jointly by the UK based Reprieve human rights organisation and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), the report revealed that death sentences increased by more than 600 per cent in Bahrain, with at least 51 people being handed a death sentence since the outbreak of anti-government protests in 2011.
Seven people received death sentences in the decade before the Arab Spring.
The report pointed to the widespread use of torture, especially in cases related to “terrorism” despite the government’s pledges to reform its human rights file.
About 88 per cent of those executed in Bahrain since 2011 had been convicted on “terrorism” charges and all had been tortured, the report added.
Today, around 26 men are facing imminent execution, 11 of whom say they were tortured by Bahraini authorities.
According to court documents, this includes individuals whose convictions were based on false “confessions” extracted under torture.
The report was released on the one-year anniversary of the Bahraini Court of Cassation’s decision to uphold the death sentences against Mohammed Ramadhan, an airport policeman, and Husain Moosa, a hotel driver, who participated in the 2011 protests.
Both men were tortured and convicted on the basis of confessions obtained through torture.
Link to the original post: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210715-report-600-rise-in-death-sentences-in-bahrain-since-2011/
